


Sunbeams

by ADreamingSongbird



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Background Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov - Freeform, Character Study, Gen, written for Yuuri Zine: Born To Shine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 15:09:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15051899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamingSongbird/pseuds/ADreamingSongbird
Summary: Mari Katsuki watches her brother leave home for the second time. It's not the same as before.She thinks that's a good thing.





	Sunbeams

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Born To Shine](http://yuurizine.tumblr.com), a zine celebrating Yuuri Katsuki!

It’s different this time.

The walls are bare, the bed forlorn, the drawers all but empty and the desk barren. Mari surveys the room, watches the dust dancing in the sunbeams, and sighs to herself. It’s different, and yet it’s the same. Yuuri is leaving a few things behind this time, planning to come home for visits more often this time—how could he not, after how happy their parents were to see him again?—but the end result is, once again, this lonely, bleak room.

_(They stand in the airport terminal, just the two of them.  Yuuri didn’t want their parents to see him cry.  “You’ll be okay.  America is far away, but you’re a strong boy.  You’ll be okay.”_

_“I know.”  Yuuri wipes his eyes, Vicchan squirming in his arms, licking his cheeks for the last time.  “I’ll be fine.  Please don’t worry about me.”)_

The memory makes Mari snort.  She’s his sister.  Of course she’d worry.  She’ll always worry.  It’s what she does.  It’s what family does.  Worry just means they care, and there’s nobody here who hasn’t had Yuuri worm his way into their heart. Everyone cares, so everyone worries.

But it’s different this time.

“Yuuri!” Viktor Nikiforov’s voice sings out, crackling over the speaker from her baby brother’s phone.  Mari turns to face the hallway, where her little brother is coming to find her, phone in hand.  “Oh!  Is that Mari-nee-san?  Yuuri, let me say hi to her!  Did I get the honorific right?”

“Your accent is still terrible,” Mari informs him as Yuuri wordlessly tips the phone her way.

Viktor blinks, his smile faltering a little.  “Oh.”

“Mari,” Yuuri hisses, and she rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “Be nice to him!”

“You should stay longer next time,” she adds, looking back at the screen.  “More time in Hasetsu will get you speaking like a proper person.”

Viktor’s face positively lights up, and next to him, Yuuri’s does too.  Mari reaches over and ruffles his hair fondly, no longer caring if he complains and ducks away.  He did, last time.

_(“Mari, please, that’s embarrassing…”_

_“What? I won’t get the chance to embarrass you for a while. Let me get my time in while it lasts, pipsqueak.”)_

This time, though, he just yips in surprise, but stands there and takes it.  Mari approves, especially when he rolls his eyes back at her.  Spending time with his fiancé (and oh, if Okaa-san isn’t still tearfully excited about _that_ next time Mari talks to her, she will be very surprised) certainly has helped him find his spine.

“A Saga accent isn’t what I’d call proper,” Yuuri mumbles.  “He’ll be speaking Japanese at the NHK Trophy sounding like the fishermen down the street.”

If anything, Viktor’s face glows even more radiantly. It’s a face like the one he made when he had katsudon this summer, or when Mari showed him some of Yuuri’s baby pictures while Yuuri was in the shower. “There’s nothing wrong with that! They’re very nice fishermen, you know!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know!  They are!  It’s just funny if you sound like them!” Yuuri giggles, actually giggles.  Mari raises her eyebrows but says nothing.  Apparently, her baby brother has finally grown up enough to let himself enjoy his life.

It’s a good thought.

“What’s funny about it?” Viktor asks.  “I think it’d be nice to sound like everyone else at home.”

Yuuri chokes. Mari wordlessly slaps him on the back, shaking her head, and wishes she could say she’s surprised that he didn’t expect that.  Of course Viktor—Vicchan—thinks of Hasetsu as home.  How could he not?

“We’d be happy if you sounded like us, too, Vicchan.”  She smiles at him, while Yuuri grows pink and then a bit red, clearly still wrapping his mind around the way Viktor just referred to Hasetsu as _home_.  He can be so silly sometimes. Did he really not notice?  “Make sure this silly kid comes home too sometimes, will you?”

Viktor fires off a two-fingered salute.  “You can count on me, Mari-nee-san!”

“I’m glad to hear it.”  Mari glances at Yuuri, who finally seems to have snapped out of it, and has to stifle a laugh.

“W-wait! Home? I thought home’s in St. Petersburg!”

“Home,” Viktor says sagely, “is where the heart is.”

Yuuri’s laughter rings out in the hall, displacing the early-morning stillness and inviting joy to swirl with the dust dancing in the shafts of sunlight.  The windows in his room face east; when Mari glances back over her shoulder, she sees the light of the new day. There might be something poetic to be found in the sunrise on the day of a new beginning, but she’s never really been the type for artistic interpretations. That’s always been Yuuri’s forte.

Still, this is different, too.

_(It’s raining, grey and cool and windy, as they hurry into the car. Even that short walk has water splashing uncomfortably onto their clothes, from the wind and the puddles, and when they sit down, Mari can feel its chill seep through the cloth to lie against her skin._

_“Get some tea at the airport,” she advises. Yuuri is stroking Vicchan’s damp fur with a forlorn look, as if he’s only finally realizing that he has to say goodbye to his dog today, too, and Mari wants to hold him. She can’t, though, because he doesn’t think she’s noticed that he’s sad, and he wants to keep it that way. Her baby brother likes to think he’s strong and alone._

_“I will,” he says, nodding and not looking at her. “It’s okay. I will be fine.”_

_“I know,” she answers. “You’ll be fine.”_

_It might be a lie.)_

“You’re such a sap,” Yuuri teases, and Viktor beams at him.

“Your sap!”

Yuuri nods his agreement, while Mari studies his smile. It’s genuine, very genuine, and she’s glad to see it. Yuuri smiles like this far more often, these days. “My favorite sap.”

“I can’t wait to see you,” Viktor sighs, his voice a little crackly over the phone. “I’ll be waiting at the airport in just a day! That’s such an exciting thought. Should we send postcards home?”

“Yes,” Mari interjects, because she knows for a fact that both of their parents would _love_ to hang postcards from St. Petersburg up in the kitchen. “Lots of postcards.”

Viktor claps his hands together, drops his phone in the process, picks it up with a curse under his breath while Mari laughs at him, and beams at the screen. “Wonderful!”

“I can’t wait to see you, either,” Yuuri says, a little shyly, but glowing with a smile. “I can’t believe we’re about to leave already. Wow.”

“Don’t miss your flight!” Viktor laughs.

Mari studies her brother for a moment. The answer seems obvious now, but still, she feels like she has to ask him the same question she did years ago, before he went to America—

“Hey, Yuuri. Are you happy?”

_(A sigh, while fat raindrops roll down the windows. “I don’t know.”)_

A laugh, bright and warm and excited. “Yes.”

Things are different this time, indeed.

“Good,” Mari says, and closes the door on the empty room.


End file.
